An experiment in possibility thinking

Tag Archives: writing

Meeting deadlines and achieving goals demands effective use of time and resources. When we look at our workload, we reach for the calendar, the timeline, budgets, and other tools for ensuring that we have what we need and do the right things at the right time. We don’t assume that the resources we need are unlimited and available whenever we decide to use them. We don’t treat our pool of resources as something we can stretch at will to double its original size, and we don’t squander our most valuable resources to accomplish the things that matter least.

Many of us need to follow those common sense guidelines when we allocate our most precious resource–our capacity to think.

I’m not talking here about doing brain workouts like the games sold by Luminosity or practicing mindfulness. Neither am I referring to dietary supplements, exercise, rest, and other health practices that are good for the brain.

Instead, I want to try adapting the tools we all use to manage our time, resources, and productivity to the needs of people whose work spans an array of complex issues and requires versatile use of mental processes and people who are finding their way–whether that means exploring or reassessing career directions, working on a dream and a job simultaneously, or rebuilding and recovering after loss and upheaval.

Think Pond members: Let’s see where this takes us! How might considering flow, mental energy requirements, aesthetics, and social needs help us make better use of thinking time?

In what ways do you consider yourself creative or innovative? In what areas do you wish you were more creative or innovative? What role do imagination and creativity play in your chosen profession and in your current industry, organization, and job? In your other roles (citizen, parent, partner, single person, homeowner, gardener, cook, athlete, whatever)? What are some specific creative challenges you face currently? What stimulates your imagination? What would you like to make? What are some areas within your industry or profession where innovation most needs to happen? What types of solutions would transform your industry or profession? Based on recognized problems and developments you have seen in recent years, what is the likely next wave of your industry or profession? What change is currently emerging?

Explore those questions at Creativity Springs–a place for injecting imagination, creativity, and artistry into any project or endeavor.

Here is my ineffective pattern of using social media to advance my professional endeavors: 1) Try each new tool as it becomes available or is recommended to me and 2) spend inadequate time thinking about its usefulness for my purposes and learning to use it properly. The result? Lost opportunities, insubstantial traces of my ideas and writing scattered widely and serving no purpose. So for the next few weeks, I’m going to do an iPresence “rehab” project.

I’ll start by:

Reclaiming the fragments of my identity littering the social media landscape

Retracing and picking up the unfinished threads of thought I’ve left on abandoned blogs and pages.

Reconsidering the groups I’ve joined and quickly forgotten.

Revisiting the profile pages I’ve never completed.

Next, I’ll enlist some experts and fellow social media wanderers in mapping out more integrated strategies for establishing and maintaining the practices needed to make good use of online media. My goal will be to develop a “digital opus” that matters to me.

Could Rich iPresence help you in becoming a thought leader in your sphere? In advocating effectively for an organization or cause you embrace? In simply telling a coherent, meaningful story of what matters to you professionally? Join me and find out.

The Web offers today’s writers, scholars, experts, and storytellers an unprecedented opportunity to be “present” as society’s problems are discussed and new ideas, trends, or models emerge and take shape. Those who can make their views stand out in this democratic but kaleidoscopic marketplace of ideas have a distinct advantage.

Think Pond will interrogate, examine, and critique this social media “revolution” from different angles and present the alternative–Rich iPresence.

I’ll share some observations about the theories and issues surrounding this concept of iPresence. I’ll comment on books and articles that raise new questions or shed light on our dialogue. I’ll try to engage Think Pond members and others in conversations. To be coherent, I’ll develop a position paper examining those issues that builds on my 1993 Master’s project, which explored the potential impact of the brand new Web on the control and ownership of mass media.

Stemming from my own quest to integrate my “digital opus” and help some fledgling groups with theirs, I’ll provide some practical tools and ideas–and finally a white paper proposing integrated strateges–for using websites, choosing suitable social media avenues, and using other online media to create a coherent, meaningful, and useful online presence.